Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 13:46:03 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Vanagons and part
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=response
re
"But the major difficulty
other than that is that there were never enough of them here for the
average wrench or even the average dealership to ever get solid
experience dealing with them, so we really do have to become our own
experts."
we must live in different countries or something .....
cause vanagons are *ALL OVER THE PLACE* ......
at least in the West.
I'm serious, I know of hundreds and hundreds of vanagons personally. ( and
interestingly, there are all slightly different from each other, in trim,
colors, and equipment. I have barely ever seen two identical vanagons. )
I have a dozen of them within 60 feet of where I am sitting.
I'm sure there are at least 200 locally, just within a 70 mile radius,
possibly even more than that. Very, very common vehcile I think.
There's tons of life and enjoyment left in them,
but then, I am a presever of things - a healer, and it's fun and easy to
keep them happy, or make tired vanagons happy again. It's redicuously easy
sometimes.
They just take care and understanding is all.
They are not like say, 1982 toyota pick up trucks that won't die no matter
what you do or don't do to them.
They do require care and understanding ..........but it's not really that
hard to do.
I feel sorry for the poor vans and cars. Servicing and maintaining cars is
NOT hard !!
The trick......
the Big Trick - is getting someone to do it.
The owner first of course .............getting them to realize that say
..........servicing the CV joints and changing the transmission oil would be
a great ( and cost effective and money-saving ) thing to do. That's the
first 'hard thing' - the operator of the vehcile interested in doing
something like that. The actual work isn't that hard really.
The next 'hard part' ........is getting someone who actually cares, and
wants to give you good value for your hard earned dollar, to do the work,
and to do it well, at a fair price. That is the really hard part. It's not
hard to find shopst that want to throw a ton of money into any repair.
That's easy.
But find a shop that is concerned about what it might cost you..........or
is concerned about advising you the best way to spend your money on the
van - where to put the money where it will do the most good - that's not so
easy to find. And .......workmanship ...........finding a shop that does
perfect workmanship ........based on what I see on vanagons - that's kinda a
rare thing too sometimes, it would appear.
But the actual DOING ...........that's easy. It's getting the humans
involved, to do it in the first place, then to do it for reasonable cost,
and to do it with good workmanship and attention to detail - that's what's
hard. Most service and maintanece is really quite easy to do. it's boringly
easy to do almost. It's getting it done that is hard, making it happen in
the first place. Like who wants to bother with rotating tires or inspecting
brake pads ...........right ? But it's not hard to do, not a all.
And these vans are well worth investing our love and energy in. I consider
it even, a 'last stand' .........
almost the last stand we get to make having cars that we actually have a lot
of control over, and can work on ourselves.
With things like cash for clunkers ............our vans become more
precious and valuable by the day, and there is good life left in them yet
for sure !
And isn't it sweet that gas prices didn't shoot up to 4 bucks a gallon this
summer ! Did quite well there, keeping the price within reason,
relatively speaking.
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Beierl" <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 9:36 AM
Subject: Re: Vanagons and part
> At 12:09 PM 9/2/2009, Dave Mcneely wrote:
>>Geez! Vanagons are difficult vehicles. Anyone who owns one and thinks
>>otherwise seems strange to me. Mercedes on the other hand are just
>
> I'd say that it's a darn shame that the Vanagon is nowhere near
> Japanese reliability standards of the time. But the major difficulty
> other than that is that there were never enough of them here for the
> average wrench or even the average dealership to ever get solid
> experience dealing with them, so we really do have to become our own
> experts.
>
> What is it overall that makes *you* find them difficult? Serious
> question.
>
> --
> David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
> '89 Po' White Star "Scamp"
| 
